Scary New Happenings

This is what I did today. One of my very dearest friends works at Adobe and invited me to their crazy Halloween party. There were hundreds of people there and the line to get into their haunted offices was more than an hour long wait. But that was ok - they had snakes.Yikes.

But the scariest part was this: about half way through our haunted journey (that included everything from zombies and a gory haunted Olympics to Neverland, Lord of the Rings, and Hunger Games) I got an email. It was from the March of Dimes. After my phone interview on Friday, they have officially invited me to come out to San Jose for a second interview. They said they wouldn't be contacting me until the end of the week...I was excited and scared and scared all at the same time.

I am going to go. For heaven's sake, 7 months into unemployment you start feeling a lot better about taking risks. Who knows what will happen, but no matter what, I am in for a big adventure. Cost effective means I will drive out there this coming Monday. I will interview, maybe see some sights in my old hometown,  hopefully spend a couple of days with some really big redwood trees, and then I will come home. And then maybe my life will change. Drastically. Or it will stay the same, and that is ok, too.

All we can do is wait and see.

Scary. :)

Tready Class - Both a Failure and a Success

For a few weeks now I have been eyeing the treadmill class on my local rec center's fitness classes calendar. I know how to run - one foot in front of the other, right?? But I am also a slow, stick-to-the-basics kind of runner. I rarely do anything but move forward. Sometimes, if I am feeling crazy, I will increase the incline on the treadmill, or create my own speed intervals by playing with the speed button a little bit. Sometimes I will run up some sort of hill when I am outside and call that my hill workout.

So, I am not ashamed to say that 2 weeks after having run my 4th half marathon of the year, I was more than a little nervous to think about showing up at a treadmill class. Luckily, I recently made my Mom read The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Bown and just the other day we talked about leaning into the discomfort of vulnerability. This treadmill class seemed like a perfect opportunity to lean into some discomfort. So, I faced my vulnerability and decided to run with it - literally.

I showed up and class and most of the treadmills were full. There were some running rock stars on the front row, and a couple of normal people on the row behind. I am so grateful for those normal people who made me feel a little better. CLASS. WAS. AWESOME. We warmed up and then our teacher decided that torture was a fun way to pass the time in class. We were going to skip. On our treadmills. At an incline of 10, 12, and 15. Have you ever skipped on a treadmill at maximum incline? It is ape crazy, I tell you. We did some other drills and then kept coming back to the skipping. It may not sound super intense, but please believe me when I tell you that it was. It was so intense that I actually pooped out of class 35 minutes into it - 20 minutes early.

Usually that would mean that I would leave class with my tail between my legs and go home to sit in a tragic ball of shame, vowing to never show that kind of weakness in public again. But it wasn't like that. I hit my limit, left and vowed to go back on Wednesday. I really did enjoy the class, I am just not used to it.  AND THAT IT OK. While it can be incredibly difficult to try something new, I will never grow if I am never willing to work for it. I left class, came home, and found a 20 minute abs and arms workout on fitsugar and counted that as the end of my class.

And next time, I will stay a little longer, grow a little stronger, and soon, I will be kicking that tready's trash...even if it continues to kick mine :)

I'M BACK IN THE GAME!

So, a week or two ago I sent my computer away to my brother for some much needed care. My computer was old and slow and it was time for some upgrades. As fate would have it, in the midst of said upgrades, my computer gave up the ghost. My brother told me that he would try ordering some new memory and see if that would do the trick.  The memory was to come sometime this week and I was going crazy waiting to get my compy back. I felt so liberated to be free of constant connection for the first several days without my computer, but I recently started to experience some serious withdrawals and was getting antsy to be reunited.  So when my brother called today and said he was at my house, I rushed home and what did I find? Not my computer. The laptop he showed up with wasn't mine. Or was it?

It was for me! He had a brand new laptop ready for me! It is a thing of beauty and it far surpasses my old machine. AND the battery actually works so I don't have to always have my computer plugged it! Oh, the modern age! (Turns out it is great to have a brother who is in cahoots with your father who is a computer genius and can produce laptops at the drop of a hat.) 

Truth be told, I will miss my old lappy.  It was one of the first big purchases I had ever made for myself and it carried me through some crazy times, not the least of which was 2 years of grad school. We grew pretty close during that time and I am sad to see him go. However, I am also not complaining! Back to life! Back to applying for jobs! Back to blogging! Back to watching Netflix while I keep myself busy around the house during the day! Speaking of which, I think I'll go catch up on New Girl now...

Three Things Thursday

Thing One:  Tomorrow is Shakespeare Competition. During my time of funemployment, I have been volunteering at a local high school. What do I do there? Well, I help coach their Shakespeare team. "What?" you say. "There is such a thing as a Shakespeare team?" Why yes, yes there is. And my secret talent is teaching high schoolers how to rock the words of The Bard. Are you shocked? Sometimes I am, but it makes me feel productive and quite frankly, I love it. The kids will perform monologues, small scenes, and one big ensemble scene down in Cedar City, home of the Tony award winning Utah Shakespeare Festival. They have been working very hard and I am so excited to see them compete!

Thing Two: It is like Christmas when books that I have on hold at the library finally come in. This one is Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Several years after losing her mother to cancer, Cheryl walked the Pacific Crest Trail on her own. This her story of how she found herself again on that trail. One of the reviews reads,

 “A big, brave, break-your-heart-and-put-it-back-together-again kind of book. Strayed is a courageous, gritty, and deceptively elegant writer. She walked the Pacific Crest Trail to find forgiveness, came back with generosity—and now she shares her reward with us. I snorted with laughter, I wept uncontrollably . . . A beautifully made, utterly realized book.” —Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted

I love adventure stories, I love memoirs, I especially love stories that combine the two. I can't wait to read this book. I'll let you know how it goes. 

Thing Three: Thai Pumpkin Curry is incredible! Remember how much I love autumn? Well, if I can combine my love of autumn with anything else my love of Thai food - I am in heaven!  I am still going to my old library, so I had to drive a little ways to get my book. I made my mom come with me (because I am a grown up and didn't want to go alone). We went for a walk around the library and the park behind it and then went to Thai Drift for dinner. Maybe this was the second time I have been there this week. It was wonderful again, as was the whole evening actually. October is off to a great start!

Debates!

I watched most of the presidential debate at the gym tonight. I got there a little late, but put in a good 4 miles on the treadmill. I haven't run inside in such a long time! I don't mind it, but the transition is always a little rough. And while the debate was interesting, it wasn't really the kind of tv that keeps me moving.

When things got slow, I tried to help myself forget that I was on a tread by mill by trying to predict what SNL will parody from the debate this weekend. I think they will feature a lot of made up numbers, Romney interrupting everyone,  Big Bird showing up to defend his honor, Obama looking anywhere but at his opponent, and Jim Leher throwing his hands up and giving up all together on moderating. It should be a good show!

First Day of the Best Month of the Year!

October is here! October is BY FAR my favorite month of the year. In fact, this year I have been getting all kinds of emotional about it. Not sure where that is coming from, but I kind of feel like Kristen Bell when she had a sloth come to visit. I just get so excited when I think about autumn, Halloween, crunchy leaves, cooler weather, pumpkin bread, cider, warm soup, cozy sweaters, fall colors in the canyon, carving pumpkins, and all of the other wonderful things about this time of year.

Today I celebrated the first of October at a local farm with my mum, brother-in-law, and my niece and nephew. We went on a trick-or-treat hayride, practiced our lassoing skills (see above), got lost in a corn maze, and took a little visit to the pumpkin patch. I got my very own pumpkin! And yes, I walked out of there just as proudly as all of the six year olds who had picked their perfect pumpkins!

After partying with my favorite munchkins, I went to my dear friend Kathryn's house for pumpkin bread and cider. It is an annual tradition on October 1st and I have been counting down the days with all kinds of anticipation! It was everything I had hoped for; good friends, cozy food, and the official arrival of my favorite time of year!

And, to make everything better, I actually started this morning off by going for a massage. My mum had gotten me a groupon for a 60 minute massage for me to use after the Disneyland Half, it has been almost a month, but I finally got around to using it. It was heaven. The only bad thing about going for massages is that it reminds me how tragic it is that I don't get them more often. Today I was dreaming about how awesome it would be to have my own personal masseuse who would work on me after every long run.

Ah, a girl can dream, can't she?

Today was an incredible way to begin the month and I am so excited to see what this October holds in store for me!